Heirloom
by galia-carrot
Summary: You try your hardest to leave the past alone. This crooked posture is all you've ever known. It is the consequence of living in between The weight of family and the pull of gravity. - Heirloom, Sleeping at Last. The final moments before Lorian Tucker contacts the much younger Enterprise he feels the weight of his inherited duty more then he has before


**Just something I whipped up in under an hour after finishing a chapter of another fic. I'm happy enough with it to post so here you go**

 **\- Galia**

* * *

Heirloom

 _You pressed rewind_  
 _For the thousandth time_  
 _When the tapes wore through._  
 _So you memorized_  
 _Those unscripted lines,_  
 _Desperate for some kind of clue:_  
 _When the scale tipped,_  
 _When you inherited_  
 _A fight that you were born to lose._  
 _It's not your fault,_  
 _No, it's not your fault,_  
 _I put this heavy heart in you._  
 _I put this heavy heart in you._

 _You remind me of who I could have been,_  
 _Had I been stronger and braver way back then._  
 _A million choices, though little on their own,_  
 _Became the heirloom of the heaviness we've known._

 _You are so much more than your father's son._  
 _You are so much more than the wars you've won._

 ** _\- "Heirloom" by Sleeping at Last_**

Lorian Anthony Tucker has inherited a futile fight, the fight that had first rested on the shoulders of his parents. Now standing here on the bridge, staring at the Enterprise in all the glory his father had used to describe it he feels it more acutely then he has since his father died and he's more sure then ever that they're going to loose and that his mother and Jonathan Archer were completely insane when they came up with this plane in the first place. His mother sits in the Captain's chair quietly, he knows she's watching him, wondering if he'll actually do it.

"Mother," He says, turning to face her. "It is best you return to your quarters; we do not wish to startle them more then is inevitable." He says, motioning to Alyssa to help her back to her quarters, he watches his mother brush her off and frowns a bit. At 182 his mother is not a young woman and he knows her knees and back often give her some trouble, but he cannot force her to do anything.

He turns his attention to the other _Enterprise,_ all his life he's tried to distance himself from the past, from where this ship came from and where the other _Enterprise_ has so recently come from. If he'd had his way this never would've happened but their attempt to destroy the first weapon had been unsuccessful.

He still feels guilty for not stopping the first probe, he should've been able to do it, but as Karyn would remind him the NX class had only been rated for 30 years of service – at most – not 117. Still he can never shake the feeling that had he been able to take better care of her engines and weapons their first attempt would've been successful, but he was no engineer, he never had been. His mother often insisted that he was his father's son but he'd never had his father's engineering talents and he often wonders if his mother's sadness at loosing her mate has made her see things that are not there.

"Wait a moment Karyn, I'd like to speak to you in the ready room." _The_ ready room, he never said my, because it doesn't really feel like his, none of this feels like his, even the task doesn't feel like his. He's never asked for any of this, but this was the very reason he existed. Though his mother would deny it he often felt that the only reason she'd agreed to have him and had kept trying was because she believed _Enterprise_ needed someone else who could remember the original crew and the mission in the event her death came before this moment.

Karyn follows him to the ready room, a confused look on her face. "Captain I'm not –"

"Lorian." He corrects. "Lorian, not Captain." He doesn't really like to be called Captain, especially not by Karyn.

"Lorian, I'm not sure what you reasoning is, if we can see them then they can see us." She points out, she's right, the younger – older?- _Enterprise_ is in much better condition, and this _Enterprise_ 's view screens haven't worked properly in nearly 30 years. "Either their going to hail us or we're going to hail them."

"I know, but it's not too late to warp off and leave." He mutters, he's seriously considering it as a possibility.

"Would they believe that? You remember the stories of my great-grandfather's stubbornness, he'd probably follow." She points out.

"I _remember_ your great-grandfather's extraordinary stubbornness." He growls. "But despite that strange things happen in the Expanse, they could believe it was a reflection, a mirage of some sort."

"And you know your mother's love of her work. She's already scanned us and knows we're not." Karyn challenges. "We came all this way and if we couldn't destroy the probe there's no way in hell we can destroy the full weapon and you know it. I know what you're afraid of."

He turns at her, his anger boiling to the surface. "Afraid of? What do I have to be afraid of?"

"Aside from failure?" She crosses her arms. "You're afraid of meeting your father, and of having to explain to him and your mother who you are."

It briefly crosses his mind that he could confine her to quarters for insubordination, but he's not going to do that because she is right. "What makes you think that?" He asks quietly.

"All your life you've heard that you're your father's son." She says. "It's been what? 100 years since his death?"

"98."

"98 years then," She rolls her eyes. "You were 14 when he died and you can hardly remember him now, all you have are your mother's words and she's always telling you that you're your father's son but I know you. I know you didn't want this ship in the first place, you took it because it's what your father would've done." He keeps his mouth shut, because that's true too. "You're trying to live up to something you're not. You're not just your father's son, you're you and you're afraid that if you meet him he won't be very proud of who you are, of who any of us are. But that doesn't change that we can see them, they can see us and this might be our only remaining chance to change what happened and to help them save humanity."

"And what if we don't?" He growls.

"Then they go through that portal and the same thing happens to them, and then what? Then there are 2 Enterprises in the expanse waiting for another one to come along." She points out. "Or maybe we try to destroy the full weapon, meet them anyway and all die trying? Because I know as well as you do that 117 years ago Enterprise didn't stand a chance on her own with that weapon and that we sure as hell don't stand one now."

"Or we disappear and history repeats." He says.

"Even worse, so –"

"Captain," Alyssa's voice comes on over the comm. "They're hailing us."

"I'll be there in a moment." He sighs. "Lorian out."

Before they can leave Karyn stops him. "Lorian, you are more then your father's son, and he'd be proud of that."

He brushes her off and steps onto the bridge, waiting for Karyn to take her place before he motions for the hail to be answered. "My name is Lorian, Captain of the NX-01 Enterprise." He says, staring a head at the man he remembers to be Captain Jonathan Archer, and behind him, his mother as he knew her when he was a child. Shaking off the nerve and pulling out a bit more of the Vulcan stoicism he begins to explain, the weight of his inherited burden heavier then it had been before.


End file.
